Helma Orosz ([ˈoros]; born 11 May 1953, in Görlitz) is a German politician and member of the CDU. She was the Saxon State Minister for Social Affairs between 2003 and 2008 and Oberbürgermeister (Lord Mayor) of Dresden from 2008 to 2015.

You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in German. (May 2022) Click [show] for important translation instructions. View a machine-translated version of the German article. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 9,116 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing German Wikipedia article at [[:de:Helma Orosz]]; see its history for attribution. You should also add the template {{Translated|de|Helma Orosz}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

Quick Facts Mayor of Dresden, Preceded by ...

Helma Orosz
Helma Orosz (2008)
Mayor of Dresden
Incumbent
Assumed office June 2008
Preceded by	Ingolf Roßberg
Saxon Minister of Social Affairs
In office 2003–2008
Mayor of Weißwasser
In office 2001–2003
Personal details
Born	(1953-05-11) May 11, 1953 (age 70) Görlitz, Bezirk Dresden, East Germany
Citizenship	German
Political party	CDU

Close

Orosz worked as assistant director of a nursery school in Weißwasser since the 1970s. In 1989 she became leader of the district nursery school association, and in 1990 she was appointed head of Weißwasser district's department of health and social services. She kept that position when the district was merged into the Niederschlesischer Oberlausitzkreis.^[1]

Orosz joined the CDU in 2000.^[2] She was elected mayor of Weißwasser in 2001. Saxon minister president Georg Milbradt appointed her minister of social affairs in 2003.^[1]

In 2008 Orosz was elected mayor of Dresden as a first woman in that function. She received 47.61% of the vote on the first ballot^[3] and 64% on the second ballot. Orosz campaigned as a representative of the progressive "urbane" wing of the CDU, in line with mayors Petra Roth of Frankfurt and Ole von Beust of Hamburg.^[1]

Orosz supported the construction of the Waldschlösschen Bridge^[4] which cost Dresden its status as a World Heritage Site. As a protest against the bridge artist Erika Lust in 2009 created a painting which depicted a bare-breasted Orosz in front of the bridge. Orosz obtained a preliminary injunction against public display of the painting,^[5] but the Higher Regional Court of Dresden judged the artistic freedom and the artist's freedom of expression more important than Orosz' personal rights.^[6] Orosz did not appeal to the Federal Constitutional Court.^[7]

In 2011 Orosz was diagnosed with breast cancer. She received medical treatment for ten months and re-assumed her duties in March 2012.^[8]

• Konrad Adenauer Foundation (KAS), Member of the Board of Trustees^[9]